Horace Heffner <[email protected]> wrote: You are attempting an argument from authority (your own), which is > fallacious. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority > > http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html > > I disagree with those definitions, especially Wikipedia. (I disagree with Wikipedia as a matter of principle; the Duke of Wellington principle: "if Napoleon lays the poker on the floor this way we must insist it be laid in the other direction" -- Duke of Wellington.)
Anyway, I prefer this definition: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html Fallacious appeal to authority; a.k.a. Misuse of Authority, Irrelevant Authority, Questionable Authority, Inappropriate Authority, Ad Verecundiam. As you see from the definition, since Storms is a bona fide authority in the relevant field, this is not an appeal to authority. That does not mean Storms is right. Elsewhere Heffner wrote: "The serious storage pond coolant loss is probably due to a combination of power loss, resulting in loss of cooling and pond temperature increases to boiling . . ." Correct. The power loss, in turn, was caused by the tsunami rather than directly by the earthquake. The reactors were all intact after the earthquake, before the tsunami hit. I still think something is fishy about the fact that the pond went dry even with 700 people there. Someone should have kept an eye on the one in #4. They could have brought a hose up there before the water level fell enough to expose the rods and make the room to dangerous to enter. I guess the other pools were in areas damaged by the hydrogen explosions from the reactors, in places they could not reach. I also do not understand why the hydrogen built up in the containment building. They had some electricity. Didn't they have some means of venting it? Or even igniting it a little at a time? Hydrogen was a big worry during Three Mile Island. I assumed people retrofitted reactors with ways to deal with it. I'll bet TEPCO covers up events and we never find out what happened. In the U.S. there would be a Congressional Investigation and all would be brought to light. I do not think the Japanese Parliament does a good job at that. The scope of investigations is more limited. The U.S. Congress investigate disasters unrelated to governing such as the Titanic. The Japanese constitution says: "Article 62. Each House may conduct investigations in relation to government, and may demand the presence and testimony of witnesses, and the production of records." You could've improved that, Beate! - Jed
